Canguilhem Versus Nietzsche. Abnormality and Value Creation

Abstract

This article sets out and develops a comparative study between Canguilhem’s notion of abnormality and Nietzsche's notion of degeneration. Its aim is to expand Canguilhem’s conception of abnormality through a reading of Nietzsche, particularly on the basis of paragraph 224 of Human, All Too Human. To accomplish this, the text examines the French author’s relational stance between health and pathology and shows that he rejects the possibility of understanding health based on the isolation of a living being from its environment. Following this exposition, the article analyses the axiological superiority of health over illness in Canguilhem and distinguishes between a biological and a social ideal of health. In a third stage, the study compares the perspectives of Nietzsche and Canguilhem and offers an analysis of both their affinities and the difference that separates their conceptions of the relationship between science and life. Once these equivalences and dissonances have been established, the article defends the possibility of a transvaluation of abnormality based on Nietzsche, and argues that this alternative view allows Canguilhem’s proposals to be broadened. The central argument asserts that Nietzsche opens the door to an axiological reinterpretation of abnormality from perspectives outside the Canguilhemian normative framework, which implicates an expansion of the conception of value creation. The thesis therefore proposes that Nietzsche presents a broader conception of value creation than does Canguilhem. To support this claim, the article analyses the German author’s inversion of the concept of degeneration.